


Mars Meets Venus

by San



Category: Duran Duran
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-04
Updated: 2011-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-17 14:25:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/San/pseuds/San
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick meets a dying goddess, or, an alternate explanation for Kajagoogoo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mars Meets Venus

"So?"

"I'm not falling for that one again," Nick answered calmly. "Find someone else to bait, Simon, I'm not in the mood."

"What about you, Johnny?" Simon asked, turning to drape his arm over the back of his chair so he could look at the lanky bassist. John was sprawled over the couch, his head tipped back over the arm as he tried to get control of his nosebleed.

"I'm not wagering with you tonight, Simon," came the muffled answer, "Though I'll remind you, I saw her first."

"Ha!" Simon answered, shaking his finger at John, then turning to look at Nick.

"Don't start," Nick answered. "I swear, the two of you...made for each other."

"Oh, come on," Simon half-sneered, "don't be such a stick in the mud, Nick. We're famous. Have some fun with it, for Christ's sake. It's not like Julie's going to mind...much."

Nick crushed his fag out in the ashtray and stood, absently brushing his hands on his slacks.

"I do have fun, Simon. I just know where to draw the line," he answered, wryly. "Besides, one of these days one of these birds is going to catch you at your little game, and then where will you be?"

"I guess we'll see when we get there," Simon answered, and Nick rolled his eyes.

"Rehearsal tomorrow," John said as Nick opened the door.

"Yes, John, I haven't forgotten," he replied, dryly. "See that you and laughing boy don't, either."

He expected the comment to be ignored, and it was; Simon began experimenting with the latest target's last name; "Par-ven-ah, Par-va-na. Shit, Johnny, how do you think this is pronounced?"

John's answer was muffled behind the closing door, and Nick stood out in the hall for a moment, hands tucked in his pockets, thinking. He wasn't much in the mood to go to the flat he and Jules were sharing this week, but he wasn't really up for wandering around alone, either. Roger would be collapsed in his hotel room, or, no, Roger was back in England with Giovanna, and...even when they were getting along Nick didn't much care for Andy's company. A feeling that was blessedly mutual.

He found himself in the lobby, and asked the concierge to call him a taxi, still unsure what he was going to do with himself.

Probably best to head home, he decided, leaning on the desk and looking out the hotel doors at the fans outside with a sigh. If nothing else there were a couple of books he was looking forward to, and Julie generally let him read unmolested. One way to get some quiet time.

Or he could always follow his dad's example and lock himself in the bathroom with a book, since he had no workroom. Either way he might get some of the solitude he craved.

He slipped out the doors when the taxi arrived, pausing obediently to sign a few autographs though he remembered saying very little when he slipped into the cab. He didn't give directions to the driver until the door was shut. There would likely be another gaggle hanging about at the flat already, making Julie tense, and he could see no reason to exacerbate the problem.

He looked down at his hands, surprised to find himself twisting his wedding band. He forced himself to stop, to fold his hands in his lap, and stared out the window at the city going by, one building looking ultimately much like the others.

When they arrived at his address he had the cabby pull in to the garage below to let him out, though he hated the claustrophobic feel of the steel and concrete. He casually overpaid the man and headed upstairs.

They had the penthouse, of course, the entire top floor of the building to themselves. Despite the fact that he and Julie were hardly settling down here, she'd had to find the finest place she could; no second tier apartment or hotel room for her. Nick found he didn't much care where they stayed; most of his life since he and John had left Brum had been a blur of hotel rooms anyway.

When he opened the door the apartment was dark, all the curtains drawn, and he cautiously called his wife's name. There was no reply so he put on the light and closed the door behind him. He frowned when he spotted the note on the coffee table, the only thing out of place in the perfectly decorated room. Slipping off his jacket, he walked over and picked it up.

"Nick," it said in Julie's distinctive bold handwriting, "Richard and Celte called. I'm going over there for a bit. Please don't wait up. Love."

He sank down to the couch with a sigh, tossing the jacket carelessly over the arm and running his hands over his face. Suddenly the place felt too empty; perhaps solitude hadn't been his goal. Or maybe Julie'd just managed to turn him around again; it happened. All together too frequently.

No help for it; he drew himself back up off the couch, scooping the daily paper up off the floor and heading in to the kitchen. Not surprisingly, there wasn't much in the refrigerator; certainly neither he nor Julie cooked.

It was as he stood in front of the opened door, staring absently at a half-bottle of Riesling, trying to decide if he was hungry enough to call for takeout and thinking he should have gone out with John and Simon that he heard splashing. It sounded like it was coming from his shower; with a frown he closed the refrigerator door and stepped down the hallway to investigate.

He supposed Julie might have returned early from her visit; some of the bitter ache lifted from him at the thought and he stepped numbly into the moist heat of the bathroom as the water shut off in the shower.

Shock splashed over him like cold water; he didn't recognize the woman in front of him at all - she certainly wasn't his wife. She was tiny, but round in all the right places; he couldn't draw his eyes up to her face for several long moments and he felt his face inexplicably begin to color when he finally did. He struggled with speech, and with a growing arousal as he met her gaze - dazedly noticing that her eyes were deep china blue - and she smiled at him slightly and said, "Hello, Nick, I was wondering when you'd get home."

He grit his teeth, battling the urge to drag her back to the bed - or, hell, take her right there on the bathroom floor. He'd never seen such a woman; not even Julieanne came close and he hated himself for making the comparison. She watched him for a moment, her slight smile slowly changing to a frown as the blood drained from his face.

"Towel," he finally ground out, pointing at the rack with a shaking hand. She meekly reached out and took one, wrapping it around herself and despite his resolve Nick could not take his eyes off of her body until she was covered, and even then his eyes kept straying from her face to the shadow of her cleavage and lower, to the darkness where the hem of the towel brushed her thighs. Simon would have had her already, he knew, but he had meant his vows to Julie and wasn't about to break them.

"I'm sorry about the shower," she said, derailing his train of thought and tightening the knot at the top of the towel, her fingers leaving slight red marks on the fair skin of her breasts, "I just had to get the birth-fluid off of me - it's a side product of Manifestation, there's nothing I can do about that..."

Nick licked his lips as he forced his eyes back up to her face.

"I don't know who you are or how you got in here, but you will gather your clothes and leave," he said curtly, summoning anger from beneath lust. It was one of the most difficult things he'd ever done; she looked back at him wide-eyed. "Quickly, or I will call the police."

Her porcelain skin tinged with pink as she looked down, one hand coming up to twist a wet lock of hair around her fingers.

"I'm sorry, Nick, I haven't any clothing. Please - this isn't going at all how I intended," she said, looking back up at him and catching her lower lip in her teeth, "I'm not a fan."

Nick's lips tightened; at least she was making it easy to sustain the anger. "No? Let me guess, you're my soulmate, right? I should never have married Julie when you were waiting for me?" he asked, bitterly. "I'm calling the police."

"Good heavens, no!" she said, shock in her voice. "And I'm sorry, Nick, but I can't allow you to call anyone just yet."

"Can't allow me?" he said, appalled, then shook it off. "I'd like to see you stop me," he finished tartly, backing off into the bedroom, to the phone next to the bed.

At least, that's what he meant to do. Instead, he found his feet solidly rooted to the floor. His heart fluttered in his chest for a moment as he tried to suss things out, and then he felt her cool hand on his cheek.

"I'm sorry, Nick, I truly am. I didn't mean to frighten you; I don't want to have to threaten you," she said, though Nick barely heard the words through the rushing in his ears as he realized that she now stood a good head taller than he did. It wasn't possible, but neither was his inability to move his feet.

"Nick," she said, gently patting his cheek to get his attention back, "Did you hear me?"

He shook his head, and she sighed.

"I said, I'm Aphrodite, and I need your help."

Nick stared at her for a moment, watching her lips move from full to thin in fascination without hearing a sound other than the rushing of blood in his ears before it registered with him that she was speaking.

"...and the first girl you dated was Margaret Adcox," he heard as he watched her hair shift from brown to red, though Molly had been a blonde.

"Good heavens," he responded absently, "I haven't thought of Molly in years. How is she?"

Aphrodite looked startled, "She's married to a man twice her age, and they have three children."

Nick laughed, faintly. "That figures. Look, you don't have to try and convince me. I believe you. If you'd just unstick me from the floor we'll get you something more decent to wear than that towel, and then I've a charming little Riesling in the fridge over which we can discuss what a mortal like me can do for a goddess like you."

"Oh," she said, gesturing with one hand, "I thought I'd need to do more to convince you."

Nick tried cautiously to pick up his foot; when that experiment was successful he gratefully stumbled over to the bed and collapsed onto the mattress.

"Trust me," he said, trying to regain his equilibrium, "the little foot-sticking trick was quite convincing."

* * *

Almost half an hour later they had her dressed in a white linen suit of Nick's that they both approved of, and she was sitting across the coffee table from Nick, who had settled down onto the couch. The warming bottle of Riesling sat on the table between them, and Nick cautiously sipped his glass as he kept one eye on the door, waiting for Julie to walk in.

"She won't be home for hours," Aphrodite commented, her face lengthening into an oval as she sipped at her own glass. "You know, Nick?"

The concern in her eyes never wavered even as they shifted from green to brown.

"Don't," he answered, giving her his full attention. "Ignorance may not always be bliss, but there are definitely times it trumps the alternative."

"I knew the two of you weren't a good match," she said, sorrowfully.

"Well, then, why didn't you send down lightning bolts on the hotel or something?" Nick asked, bitterly, "Or find some other way to show your disapproval."

"Nick! You know perfectly well that we don't work that way. We never have," she said, setting her glass down on the table and leaning forward intently. "Your problem is that you never ask for help - not even when you really need it."

"Fine." He replied, looking away from her. "I'm not asking for it now."

She sighed, and he decided to change the subject.

"So why are you here?" he asked, setting the glass down on the table. "What can I possibly do for you?"

"I - well, the truth is, we're dying," she said, hesitantly. Nick's eyebrow rose.

"You're a goddess," he said, flatly. "Surely you can do something about that on your own?"

She shook her head, looking down, her eyes covered by bangs that went from brunette and curly to blonde and straight. "We only exist as long as someone believes in us, Nick. Truly believes, not just gives us lip service because they're tired of the Christian God - and even he'll fade, someday. Hephaestus faded away some time ago; there's not a lot of call for smiths in the world, anymore, at least none that know his name and rely on him to guide their hands. Ares, now He'll probably last a long time yet," she said, disgusted, "there's always someone willing to worship a war god."

Nick tilted his head, puzzled. "I thought you'd be pleased that Hephaestus was gone. Weren't you married to him against your will?"

She snorted. "Please. Why would I prefer a destructive force to a creative one? No, that's something the Greeks changed because they needed to advance the idea that war-like men were more desirable than peaceful, creative men. How else were they supposed to fill their armies?

"But anyway, I don't want to fade away. Which really leaves me only one option - I've decided to become mortal."

Nick stared at her, shocked. "That's an option? How are you planning to explain the whole shifting-shape thing?"

"Oh!" she said. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was still doing that."

A look of intense concentration crossed her face and she settled into the shape she'd originally appeared in the shower. Nick swallowed and bit the inside of his lip.

"I don't suppose you could take a...less appealing shape?" he asked, mildly.

She tilted her head at him, then her eyes widened in understanding as he crossed his legs. "Oh," she said again. "I'm sorry."

"You needn't be sorry," he said, "you're a goddess, I'm sure you don't need to apologize to this mere mortal. It would just make our conversation easier."

"Of course," she said, frowning again. This time when she settled into one shape it was that of a young male. Nick sighed, relieved.

"So why do you need my help to become mortal?" he asked, pouring the last of the wine into his glass. "Surely you're not looking for advice?"

"No," she confessed, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. "But I'll need some way of making money, and you have contacts in the music industry that could be very useful to me."

Nick nodded, once. "I see," he commented, leaning back into the couch and sipping at his wine as he considered her. "And what will I get out of this?"

"I beg your pardon?" she said, her eyes flashing in anger. "How dare you! Why - "

"My dear lady, you're becoming mortal. My recommendation to you is that you join a band, put all your money away and then pick one other shape and 'disappear.' That should more or less guarantee that your records will continue to sell well. However, as a mortal you should also understand that we seldom do anything for nothing. What will I gain by helping you?"

She looked thoughtful, if angry, for several moments. "Surely you'll arrange things so that I'm not the only one making money here...but we were talking about you never asking for help. The one thing I can offer you up front is the knowledge that the baby is yours."

Nick nodded, his expression bleak. "Very well. I don't suppose you sing?"

She looked surprised. "Of course."

"Are you willing to be male for a while?"

She nodded, looking at him curiously.

Nick finished his wine, picked up the telephone next to the couch and dialed. "Yes, hello Beggs. Remember I told you I'd be happy to produce Kaja if you found a decent singer? I think I may have found one for you."

He covered the receiver and said, "What name shall I give him?"

She looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Limahl."

He smiled at her contented expression as she leaned back in the chair.


End file.
